Preserving history has become a priority for English-speaking Quebecers near Sainte-Agathe-de-Lotbinière, an hour south of Quebec City.
The community is worried descendants of Irish settlers who have lived and worked in rural Quebec for hundreds of years will soon leaves.
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Francis Campbell Furniture has been in the family for decades.
“He was Francis Timothy and I’m Francis Steven and we started in 1973,” said Francis Campbell, son of the original owner.
Campbell knows his family came from Ireland, but he doesn’t know much about his history.
“My parents couldn’t speak French; my mother never spoke French all her life,” Campbell said.
“Everyone around here was… English and they would only speak English around here.”
It’s been a long time since anglophones were the majority in the region.
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“There used to be an English class. We were first to sixth grade,” Campbell said.
That ended when Campbell was six.
He (and later his two sons) went to English school in Quebec City.
Now, kids from English families go to Thetford Mines.
“We’d wake up at 6 a.m. and leave at 6:30 a.m. and then arrive at school at 8:30 a.m.,” explained Campbell’s youngest son, Wilson Campbell, now 28.
By contrast, the drive to the local French school is only about 20 minutes.
Both Wilson and his older brother, Malcolm, 30, say the long drive was worth it.
Some of their neighbours feel the same way.
“My husband is fifth generation working the same land,” said Ann Marie Powell, Campbell’s neighbour.
“We’ve talked about, certainly like many families over the years, the different political situations in Quebec. It would have had to be extreme before we moved.”
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Many anglophone families have been on the land for centuries.
Irish immigrants settled in this region before the the potato famine.
“They came here under very tough conditions in the 1820’s and all of us are here because of them,” said author and Celtic Corner co-founder Steven Cameron.
However, the Irish population has been declining since the late 1800’s.
“It was about 70 to 90 per cent Irish, depending on what time period we’re talking about and today there’s maybe – I’m going to stretch it a bit, but there might be 25 or 30 of us around,” Cameron said.
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Despite a few families who still send their kids to English schools, Cameron said Irish descendants are fast disappearing.
If the population can’t survive, the community hopes to preserve the history.
A small group of volunteers fundraised to erect a Celtic cross, and research the names of all the original Irish settlers.
Cameron has researched three books on the subject.
“A lot of the stories have been hidden or not talked about, especially when there’s something a little big negative in them,” he said.
Cameron has also donated copies to all English universities in Quebec.
“In the same way the cross is, it’s a documentation, manifestation we were here; the stories aren’t lost,” he said.
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